Philosophers debate the death of philosophy as much as they debate the death of God. Immanuel Kant claimed responsibility for both philosophy’s beginning and end, while Martin Heidegger argued it concluded with Friedrich Nietzsche. In the twentieth century, figures as diverse as John Austin and Richard Rorty have proclaimed philosophy’s end, with some even calling for the advent of “post-philosophy.” In an effort to make sense of these conflicting positions—which often say as much about the philosopher as his subject—this book undertakes the first systematic treatment of “the end of philosophy ... More

Philosophers debate the death of philosophy as much as they debate the death of God. Immanuel Kant claimed responsibility for both philosophy’s beginning and end, while Martin Heidegger argued it concluded with Friedrich Nietzsche. In the twentieth century, figures as diverse as John Austin and Richard Rorty have proclaimed philosophy’s end, with some even calling for the advent of “post-philosophy.” In an effort to make sense of these conflicting positions—which often say as much about the philosopher as his subject—this book undertakes the first systematic treatment of “the end of philosophy,” while also recasting the history of Western thought itself. The book begins with post-philosophical claims such as scientism, which it reveals to be self-refuting, for they subsume philosophy into the branches of the natural sciences. Similar issues are discovered in Rorty’s skepticism and strands of continental thought. Revisiting the work of late-nineteenth and early-twentieth-century philosophers, when the split between analytical and continental philosophy began, the book finds that both traditions followed the same path—the road of reference—which ultimately led to self-contradiction. This phenomenon, whether valorized or condemned, has been understood as the death of philosophy. Tracing this pattern from Willard Van Orman Quine to Rorty, from Heidegger to Emmanuel Levinas and Jürgen Habermas, the book reveals the self-contradiction at the core of their claims while also carving an alternative path through self-reference.